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HelpRe: Thoughts on the number of names
in reply to a message by TheArtemisMoon
That's a good reason not to name kids after living people or after yourself - what if they grow up to dislike you?!
You can't choose your ancestors or things you're connected to, and your birth name is kind of part of that IMO. My kids can't dislike the people they were named after, though, because those people were dead before they were born. The point of honoring names for me wasn't to honor anyone. It was more memorial (honoring my own memory of those people), and to express in the kid's name that a connection to ancestors is an important part of who s/he is - a descendant of specific people. Since surnames do not really do that; nobody remembers those ancestors.
I love making up combos, but I felt like giving my kids pretty combos as their full names kinda said, these people are mongrels with cute names... I picked cute names (IMO) as their first names but didn't want to do that for their middles. I would have rathered having a middle name that wasn't filler, myself. I would have really liked having an ancestor name instead. It was just my own comfort zone thing, using "honoring" names for my kids - I don't look at "we just liked it" middle names as a bad thing for other people; I don't care. I guess I do sort of think that more than one middle name, with all of the names chosen only for aesthetics, would be sort of shallow ... But I figure that usually people choose extra middle names because those have personal meaning for them, not just because they sound nice together.
- mirfak
You can't choose your ancestors or things you're connected to, and your birth name is kind of part of that IMO. My kids can't dislike the people they were named after, though, because those people were dead before they were born. The point of honoring names for me wasn't to honor anyone. It was more memorial (honoring my own memory of those people), and to express in the kid's name that a connection to ancestors is an important part of who s/he is - a descendant of specific people. Since surnames do not really do that; nobody remembers those ancestors.
I love making up combos, but I felt like giving my kids pretty combos as their full names kinda said, these people are mongrels with cute names... I picked cute names (IMO) as their first names but didn't want to do that for their middles. I would have rathered having a middle name that wasn't filler, myself. I would have really liked having an ancestor name instead. It was just my own comfort zone thing, using "honoring" names for my kids - I don't look at "we just liked it" middle names as a bad thing for other people; I don't care. I guess I do sort of think that more than one middle name, with all of the names chosen only for aesthetics, would be sort of shallow ... But I figure that usually people choose extra middle names because those have personal meaning for them, not just because they sound nice together.
- mirfak
This message was edited 7/28/2015, 8:19 PM
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Replies
Agreed.
My family tends to use ancestor surnames as honoring middles. My sister did it, I did it, and two of my cousins did as well. Luckily, we have a lot of family names that are also traditional first names, or actual nouns.
I always root for significance, though people are free to do what they choose.
My family tends to use ancestor surnames as honoring middles. My sister did it, I did it, and two of my cousins did as well. Luckily, we have a lot of family names that are also traditional first names, or actual nouns.
I always root for significance, though people are free to do what they choose.
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